Chapter 8: Academic Writing Activity: Student Writing in Transition

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the writing students describe as they move through levels of higher education in two institutional contexts: a small group of universities and disciplines in France and Belgium, and a single university and several disciplines in the United States. These two studies serve as concrete examples of some of the students' experiences, the writing activities they perceive, and how that perception helps one to understand their university writing in each country. These experiences index both shared concerns and differences. French study is based upon collecting students' and teachers' discourse about writing as empirical data. The chapter also focuses on the students' responses to an extensive questionnaire. Finally, the relationships among learning, writing, and disciplinary awareness, seem to be a rich field for further exploration, based on the two studies reported in the chapter. Keywords: academic writing activity; Belgium; France; institutional contexts; student writing; United States